GourmetGiftBaskets.com, broke the Guinness Book of World Records for the World’s Largest Cupcake on August 15, 2009 in Detroit, Michigan. Slices of the mammoth cupcake were given to the crowd in exchange for donations to the Susan G. Komen’s Passionately Pink for the Cure.

Merengue Bakery of Monrovia, California was commissioned to create the cupcake. In June 2009, Merengue baker George Algarin baked the world’s largest cupcake for Paris Hilton’s BFF reality show on MTV. It was 7 feet tall and weighed 8000 pounds. That cupcake was ineligible for competition because it was baked in two parts.

According to Ryan Abood, CEO of GourmetGiftBaskets, “We started off with a goal of a 7,000 pound cupcake but fate intervened on Friday morning when the baking was supposed to be complete,” says Abood. “The huge 8 by 8 foot oven was opened and we found that the weight of the expanding batter crushed one of the main convection tubes blowing hot air into the heart of the cupcake causing the batter to separate, liquefy and crush the center of the cupcake from the inside out.”

With only 24 hours left until the official weigh-in, the brilliant baking crew turned to Plan B and designed a new mold and fresh batch of batter using an estimated 200 pounds of flour, 200 pounds of sugar, 200 pounds of butter and oil and 1,000 eggs. The cupcake then baked for 12 hours, transported, frosted, filled with custard, weighing in at 1,224 pounds.

Guinness Book of World Records adjudicator, Carl Saville, flew in from London the night. He designated the cupcake the record holder in front of the crowd of hundreds. The cupcake measured 4 feet tall and 10 feet wide. After the official weigh-in, the gigantic cupcake was placed on a special stage for the full red carpet affair, complete with velvet red ropes and security detail.

The entire 1,224 pound frosted and custard filled cupcake contained 2 million calories. It cost $10,000 to bake the current record holding cupcake.